Nov. 1, 2013
|

The logo for Washington's pro football team. / Nick Wass, AP

by Erik Brady, USA TODAY Sports

by Erik Brady, USA TODAY Sports

The NFL expects to meet with Melvin Phillips, an Oneida Indian who backs the Washington pro football club's team name.

Phillips is a client of Claudia Tenney, an attorney and member of the New York State Assembly who disputes that Oneida Indian Nation representative Ray Halbritter is a true Oneida.

Halbritter is recognized as Oneida by federal, state and tribal governments. He and other Oneidas met with NFL officials on Wednesday to discuss opposition to the team name. Tenney disrupted Halbritter's news conference after the meeting and, when asked to leave, said she would take her case to the NFL.

"Mr. Phillips supports the Washington Redskins and considers the name to be an honor to the proud traditions of Indian culture," Tenney said in a statement, which also said that she asked NFL officials not to meet with Halbritter, or at least to allow her and her client to attend the meeting. She said the NFL denied the request but that she hoped to schedule a meeting for her 76-year-old client in coming weeks.

"We anticipate we will meet with her, yes," NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy said of Tenney. "We have been discussing dates."

"As we told the NFL this week, we are encouraged by its willingness to discuss the team¹s ongoing use of an epithet that denigrates Native Americans on the basis of skin color, Stagnitti said in a statement to USA TODAY Sports. "There are other leading civil rights organizations, public health groups, religious leaders, Members of Congress and President of the United States who similarly have earned the standing and stature to offer reasonable, thoughtful views on their opposition to this mascot. We were surprised, therefore, that the league has chosen instead to give a platform to a politician-lawyer who does not meet those standards, and who¹s history is to tear down Native Americans."